49 I Love Yous
by American Anaconda
Summary: Gilbert wrestles with the decision to tell his best friends if he's dying or not.


So Ludwig knew. Judging by the silence in the impossibly long car ride, he knew. His knuckles white on the steering wheel, eyes unwaveringly plastered to the road. I tried to read his face, searching for any betrayal of emotion, but there was none he chose to showcase. We were always close, never hug-it-out, lovey-dovey close, but close enough that I thought I'd at least catch a glimpse of the ice in those eyes melting...

The shower provided some sense of distraction as I pulled the _Hot_ handle way too far up, something Ludwig usually yelled at me for, although tonight I got a break from the usual lecture. Which almost surprised me, my brother wasn't someone who would simply not scold someone just because they were dying.

I stepped out and pulled a towel so vigorously back and forth through my hair that my scalp burned. I threw another around my waist and sank down onto the porcelain lid, still running the washcloth on my head as if I scrubbed hard enough I'd dislodge the damn tumor currently taking up residence inside my noggin. '_Noggin_,' that was a word Feliciano would use. One of those silly-sounding words dropped out of vocabulary in the tenth or eleventh year of life, when kids were full of that false feeling of adulthood that wouldn't have a base in reality for years to come. I put my head between my knees, inhaling the scent of bargain-brand detergent that clung to the towel until my breathing steadied. I'd miss that bastard. That's another thing I'd have to do with the powers given to me in the form of last wishes, I needed to tell my idiot baby brother to get down on one knee for him, for Christ'ssakes.

Sheiβe.

I had been trying not to think about this, shoving it into the corners of my mind since _it_ was found months ago and then again when _it _had spread. I sniffed, trying in vain to clear my sinuses with a noise that sounded like a car engine rumbling to life.

I didn't know what to say to them. Francis and Antonio, my two best friends. And when I say _best friends_, I don't mean like backstabbing-junior-high-girl-BFFs, no. I mean, the guys know everything about me. They know the exact time and place I lost my virginity, they know about every irritating fight I've had with Ludwig or Liz, they had every one of my phone numbers memorized, even though most of my cell phones met some tragic demise, they could still recite the digits for my mobile in 2006. Francis knows I like to eat his cherry cheesecake on my half birthday, Antonio knows about my secret love for badminton ('a sissy sport' I once sneered at Liz, and got a birdie lodged in the ear for my trouble) and...

And I wasn't going to tell them. The thought hit me hard, but thinking about it, it was the obvious decision. Cruel, maybe but...

But Francis was a crier. I knew that boy; he would go absolutely berserk if I told him. And honestly… I didn't want his last memories of me, of us as a complete trio, to be literally blurry from his swimming eyes. And Tonio... He was a different story. I could imagine telling him, Francis starting to wail in the background, his ever-present grin becoming fixed and unnatural before it slowly slid off his face. We often teased him about not being 'zhe brightest bulb in zhe box,' as Franny would smirk in his heavyass Parisian drawl, but this time would be different. Not from not understanding, this time he simply wouldn't want to believe the words coming out of my mouth. Or worse, knowing me, waiting for the bark of laughter and the cruel GOTCHA that wouldn't come.

No.

No, I wasn't going to tell them. They needed, real, decent last memories of me, not bittersweet ones when every laugh ended in tears.

.

.

.

The week passed by in a blur.

I remember I saw them almost every day. Ludwig didn't complain. The only time I caught him breaking down and turning away from me was when Feliciano came to visit and when he bounded over to me I held onto him longer than the average German hugs the average Italian. Feliciano made some sunny remark about how in a few months, we'll be just as good as brothers, and Ludwig made a noise in the back of his throat that almost set me off. Thank God Feliciano, for all his good qualities, cannot sense a mood worth a damn.

I remember going to a bar with the boys and getting Franny to laugh so hard his _Onhonhon!_ went silent and he snorted so uncharacteristically indelicately that Antonio almost Heimliched him.

I remember pretending to be a lot drunker than I was when I dialed Lizzie's number at three-fifty-two A.M. and admitting that **I LOVE HER** on her voicemail loudly enough for the whole establishment to hear.

But I didn't spend all of my time drunk. I remember Francis excitedly chattering about hors d'oeuvres and flowers and the kind of girly things that barely registered until it hit me - _I was going to fucking miss his wedding. _It had never really sunken in, I suppose, that February was in fact, before May. May 15th, to be exact, because that British bastard that had taken Francis so many years to convince he loved him liked precise, divisible-by-five numbers. And May, because in July, Arthur always got sick pining after the kids he and Francis had raised, and July 14th was Francis's birthday. And I remember Francis telling me firmly that this was because he 'deedn't want zhe 'oneymoon and anniversary sex to overlap wizh zhe birzhday sex!'

And I was going to miss it. Leave a best man suit unused, on a wire dry-cleaner's hanger, sheathed in plastic in a closet. Going to miss my best friends getting married to the men they loved, and going to miss my brother doing the same thing.

Francis must have noticed the pause in my stream of agreements about liverwurst and lilies because he asked if something was wrong. I was floored by the question, mouth opening and closing without sound at his simple display of manners. He looked up from his bookmarked bridal magazine, cocking an eyebrow at me when I did not provide him with an answer.

I'm not proud to say I lied.

So I won't say it.

.

.

.

It was the night. I knew it; I could feel it deep in my bones that I wasn't going to wake up tomorrow. My heart was racing, as if it was trying to get the seventy extra year's worth of beats in in an evening. My primal instincts were fighting, trying to keep me from drifting off as if staying awake would prove to whatever deity was or was not out there that by winning a mind-over-body battle that cramming college kids won every night, I would prove I was somehow strong enough to live.

It was time to do it.

I got out my phone, punched in Antonio and Francis's numbers out of muscle memory, and began typing.

And kept going.

Francis and Antonio would wake up the next morning as they always did, stretching in the sun and kissing their grouchy partners good morning. Francis will toss his silk mask he insists is essential for his beauty sleep onto his nightstand and Tonio will roll out of bed and open the curtains to let the light pour in. When things start to get going in their mornings, they'll bother to check their phones. They'll raise an eyebrow at the **50 NEW MESSAGES** notices flashing on their screens, and open their inboxes to see a flood of messages, all from the same person.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

Sprinkled in will be some Ich liebe dich's and Je t'aime's and Te amo's, but they all hold the same meaning.

Except for one.

Francis will gasp, Antonio will freeze.

I'll miss you.


End file.
